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So it's about 9:30 am here as I'm starting this, and I've been wide awake since 3:30 am. Sometimes, with this pain, it's better for me to listen to something to use as a distraction so I don't focus on the throbbing pain that feels like it's echoing around inside my skull. So I listened to the sermon from yesterday, knowing that I probably wouldn't get another chance to listen to it later today.
I'll be completely honest. "Why Does God Allow Pain and Suffering?" was probably the most difficult sermon for me to listen to in the 7.5 months that I've been following along weekly with your church. There have been several others that have moved me to tears, but none have hit me straight in the heart like this one has. I've got a lot of thoughts rumbling around in my head, so I thought I'd put them out here because, well, why not?
"Suffering is a platform for God's glory to be displayed." That was the first thing that really jumped out at me. Deep down, I know that my heart's cry is "THANK YOU! Thank you, Lord, for choosing me for a story like this. Thank you for letting me represent you and show people what miracles you can do." But on days when the pain is really bad, weekends like this where I've spent far more time in bed than out of it and can;t get the work I need to get done anywhere close to done, I can't get to the part of my heart that knows that. All I can cry out is, "God, please. PLEASE make this stop. I don't want to do this anymore. Pick somebody else. Pick somebody who's older and wiser and can deal with this better than I can because I just can't DO IT ANYMORE." I get self-righteous enough to where I think that I "deserve" better as a Christian, that this isn't what I signed up for, that God should be healing me already because I'm SO. TIRED. But like Chris said, "Good things happen to the God people!...except when they don't." And this quote from R.C. Sproul, Jr., always puts my conceit in check: "Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once. And he volunteered." I have far more now, even with this pain, than I ever deserved to begin with.
As I sat here reflecting on the message this morning, I thought back to the first time I really turned to Chris for guidance on how to deal with this pain and accept that this is the story God has for my life right now. He led me to 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. "So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (ESV) And I thought about how I felt the first time that I realized that God is using this pain as a way to draw me closer to Him, to remind me that there is no way that I can make it through this without Him. And He has been so faithful to send friends alongside of me who remind me of this again and again (and again!) when I get distracted by the pain.
And then I thought about all of those friends, people who know some very ugly parts of my heart and my life, and I remember the first time each of them told me what I had taught them about Jesus. These people know too well how messed up I really am, yet they still see Jesus in me.
And then I thought about all of you. People whom I've yet to lay eyes on (but will in less than 12 short weeks!!! :D), yet who have cared enough to invest in my story. I think about all the messages I have received from y'all, thanking me for my vulnerability and for sharing my heart, sharing pieces of your own lives with me, letting me know what an impact hearing my story has had on your faith and your own walks with the Lord. I remember the time I texted Chris about something for guidance and prayer, almost too ashamed to talk to anyone else, and he texted back, "Please post that. You are ministering to my church." It absolutely blew my mind that I was having a real effect on y'all, that you cared enough to listen to this 21-year-old girl from North Carolina. You have been an indescribable encouragement to keep sharing my story, to keep showing anyone who will listen the God that saved me and the kind of miracles He can do.
You know, I don't know why God has given me this platform, or why He's given it to me now, when I'm so young, when I've only been a Christian for a couple years, when I know so very little about life and the world. All I know is that my God is good, even when this valley doesn't make sense to me, and that He loves me. He loved me enough to send His son to die for this undeserving, broken little girl, and He loves me still enough to give me glimpses as to what He's doing with my story, a story that seems so dark and painful and dirty to the world but, in reality, is a story of redemption. All my life, long before I ever even considered becoming a Christian, I knew in my heart that I wanted to make a real difference in people's lives. I didn't know who, I didn't know how, I just knew that I wanted to make someone's life better by being in it. Now, I know that I have, simply by living out the story that was written for me the best that I can, for sharing my brokenness, for telling people what I know and what I don't know.
I never expected my story to reach a church in a suburb of Austin, Texas, let alone that it would touch people enough to ask me to come visit. Through the pain and the darkness, God has stretched my story in ways that I never could have dreamed were possible, and even though I hate this pain, I know that without it, I wouldn't have the voice that I do, and I wouldn't be able to serve Him like I can now. There are so many blessings in the middle of this brokenness, and when I stop to focus on that, that's when I remember that I wouldn't change the life that I have, not for anything, because if this is what He has for me to bring Him glory, then all of it is worth it.
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